What Is Mike Salk’s Future? More After The Break…

It’s a fair article, outlining many of the issues that have led to the station’s continued struggles against Felger and Massarotti in the afternoons.

One thing Finn mentions is Salk’s penchant for teasing upcoming topics – Is Hightower the biggest bust in Patriots history – we’ll answer that after the break. I don’t see the issue as being that he does the teases, all good radio hosts do this – it’s one thing John Dennis is really good at – but rather, how clumsy and ham-handed he is with the teases.

It’s a tough situation, Salk was brought in to replace a legend by someone who was immensely disliked and is no longer there, and apparently turned some people off within the station right away. What can they do? Salk moved his family across the country, and has a three-year deal, so getting rid of him would be messy, expensive, and probably not great PR.

But as Finn notes, it’s clearly not a great fit, and for a station that has struggled and is trying to turn things around, they have to make hard decisions.

Finn also touches on the departure of Mary Paoletti from CSNNE, which is a pretty big loss for them. This isn’t exactly breaking news, but people are nice and likable as Paoletti are not all that common in the media business.

So we lose Paoletti, and people like Gary Tanguay – catch that rant last night? – remain as fixtures in the market. Doesn’t seem right.

Tim McKone appears omnipresent as he runs broadcast spectrum – Bill Doyle profiles a young man who “works full time for Charter TV-3 as a producer, videographer, sports reporter and fill-in anchor, and also part-time for both Cox Sports TV in Rhode Island as a sports reporter and for 98.5 the Sports Hub providing sports headlines on weekends.”

Danny Ainge thinks only of C’s future – Steve Bulpett looks at how Ainge’s mindset and approach is different this season as opposed to previous years where he had to be wary of not taking a step back in-season. Ainge also said part of the reason they traded Jordan Crawford was because they wanted more time for Phil Pressey.

The afternoon show really is a lot harder to listen to than it used to be, and that’s not just on Salk – Holley seems far more annoying of late. I don’t know if it’s that Salk’s personality isn’t big enough to overwhelm Holley’s more “out-there” impulses. As someone who only gets to listen in the 5-6 hour as I drive home, lately I hear Holley talking over callers and going off on bizarre little repetitive bits and tangents far more often than he ever used to when Ordway was his partner.

It probably doesn’t help that none of the shows seem to like each other, either, and aren’t at all shy about sharing. Starting nearly every day with D&C + Kirk mocking Salk is just tiresome.

I agree with you completely, the show seems disjointed and tedious and is very difficult to stay with. It’s as though Holley is reaching. I used to listen in my office from 8-5 and on the way home but since the horrendous 10-2 show started I find myself turning it off at 10 and every so often checking in with Salk and Holley…usually not for long. I won’t listen to the Hub…it’s worse. How much longer is WEEI going to circle the drain before they straighten this out from 10-6.

I actually think it’s worse when D+C try to troll Minihane. It’s one thing to joke around with the other guys in the studio. Nobody faults that. But, it seems like every other day they’re trying to troll/bait him into saying something stupid, like when they’re doing segments on ‘gay porn’.

The hate between the morning shows, though, T+R vs. D+C, that’s real. Twitter war from the weekend:

My first time turning off EEI because of Salk was right after the Marathon, he was yelling at a grandfather, who was also a veteran, because he didn’t like his 3 year old grandson hearing Ortiz say this is our F-ing town live. He felt that Ortiz could have been a little classier with a public/live statement he knew children would be watching. Salk went at him like he was a 9/11 supporting, Holocaust denying, pedophile. I turned off EEI and haven’t gone back. I hate Felger but EEI has been so bad that I turned to Felger. And the morning show. MInihaine has half a personality but I’ll take him over those other two elitist pukes any day of the week.